jammaker

I don't think it would be as bad if the pressure was to help put food on the table and all able bodies were contributing to that. But to put the pressure on her for her sister to go to college of all things - which, what did she DO with that education, precisely? That's what feels so wrong about it. It wasn't helping out with the necessary aspects of life - though she was immediately expected to pay for her own clothes - it was going to something extra, something nice but not needed, that only benefited one member of the family.

When Laura describes Cap and Ben, I have to wonder how Almanzo felt reading it years later. There was such an obvious attraction conveyed in those words, even those many years later. I used to enjoy this book more than I do now. I know that those days must have been long and montonous for them - Laura keeps saying she feels slow and stuipd - but as a reader I don't also want to feel my mind going numb.

The beginning is so sad, but it's the first move that makes sense (in the way they're presented in the books at least). She says Pa has made enough of a crop to stay out of debt up until the doctor's bills, so he is trying and sticking it out, but then this offer to pay off the bills and make money besides comes up. And they're all just so sad, but here's this offer to go be with family (even if it's only a short time) and have a fresh start. Realistically they may have been better to have Charles go out to the job and send the money back to pay off the bills and keep the farm, but emotionally with how sad they are, how they can barely care about their clothes and upkeep, it feels like not a crazy choice to move, too. Otherwise, this book is very meh for me. It just seems like nothing really happens, almost just marking time and acknowledging the move before getting into the real "Laura grows up" portion of the series. I do like the Boasts, even though them coming out when they did was a little crazy - at least they weren't being crazy while dragging around small (and now blind!) children.

Amazon also has a pre-order price guarantee so if the price drops between now and release, you'll get the lower price. If you pre-order it now for the $21.75 and it goes up before release, you will still only pay $21.75.

I don't mind them accepting in charity in years when they don't have enough - by no fault of their own (i.e. crop failures, unexpected disasters). So this one doesn't bother me - the entire town was sunk by the grasshoppers; the entire town got gifts at the Christmas tree. Charles did go get work, they would have been able to scrape by. Sure, the girls' coats were too short, but they weren't running around in winter barefoot or starving, and they had dresses that fit. Having another baby (two, really, there was the boy that died too) when they couldn't afford it ... ehh. There was no Little Pharmacy on the Prairie dispensing reliable birth control, and with food shortages, hardships, etc, Ma's cycle may not have even been very predictable. I'm not willing to condemn them on that, because even these days with available reliable birth control, accidents do happen. I suspect, given their religious beliefs, they were of the mind that "God will provide" - ergo willingly accepting the handouts from church as God's provisions. Were they freeloaders? Yes, and it bothers me, too, that it was a pattern of behavior rather than an isolated need. But I'm glad for the girls' sake that Pa's pride didn't stand in the way of accepting charity that means they can have warm winter coats and a few nice things besides.

The charity bit doesn't bother me actually - there is no way that family (or likely most in the area) should have been spending money on gifts that Christmas, and hearing of their need, Rev. Alden's church donated what they could. Given their circumstances, it would have been more infuriating to have them spend money on gifts. I don't understand why Ma and Pa don't make more of the gifts for the girls over the years though. Pa was semi-handy with wood, he trapped a lot of animals for furs, Ma could sew and knit - they could have, for very little money, made those children some really special gifts.

I love the Christmas tree scene. You can just feel her awe at this tree covered in gifts, the anticipation, and the amazement at the abundance of gifts. Almost makes up for the Christmas with the horses and the one at the very end where there are no gifts and Pa ate all the candy. I also love the way Ma explains Santa, and I hope I can remember to draw on it when my kids eventually start questioning. For all that I hate Pa, and Ma and the rag doll, the worst thing about this book is the grasshoppers. Yuck!!

I wonder if part of this is because the littlest gets all the hand me downs. Jumping ahead to the next book, there's a lot of "and then Ma remade this dress to be that and this one to be that" and Mary gets the new boots because Mary is the oldest and her boots can be passed down. So Christmas is an excuse to give the littlest something new/nice/their own. I have three boys, and we definitely do put some extra effort into making sure the youngest gets things that are new and only for him, to sort of make up for the fact that 98% of what he wears and plays with is previously owned. (But we don't make the bigger two give him half of everything they own, or share a cup.)

I'm still confused about this, really. As it's told, it's because of the rain flooding the river. What would they have told the girls if the weather was fine? I guess I always wanted to hope that Mr. Edwards was going into town, so Pa asked him to pick up the tin cups and a stick of candy for the girls (and he'd pay him back). So the intent was all along for Mr. Edwards to bring the gifts over, but when the river got flooded it meant he wouldn't be able to. Otherwise I could see Ma knitting them new mittens or repurposing an old dress into little aprons or *something*, just as when their plans fell through she decided to hang up the stockings and make them cakes of the white sugar. I guess I don't see Ma letting Christmas just pass with no gifts, because if she were content to do that she wouldn't be last-minute making cakes after the girls went to bed.

Ma being pregnant also makes the log falling on her while building the house seem even scarier. The potential for disaster was huge. It bothers me, too, that when the family is in peril, Baby Carrie is left out of the narrative - the river crossing, but also when they had malaria. The 4 of them are near death, and Baby Carrie isn't even mentioned. If in real life, Ma was pregnant with malaria it could have caused serious issues for her and Carrie. If Carrie was an infant and Ma had malaria, who was feeding her? Infants can't go long without eating. (And, would the crying not have driven them all out of their fevered minds?) If Baby Carrie was a toddler as the book generally depicts - either she's healthy and would have been causing all sorts of trouble, or she's sick too and .... where IS she? It bothers me that no one picked up on it during the editing process and tossed in a line about her. Do we know if the family had any lingering effects from the malaria? It can recur after the initial infection. I absolutely hate the end of this. I know what's said about real-life Pa and running away from debts, etc, but the end of the book paints Pa in such a bad light. They had *just* planted this huge garden, they had this nice comfortable house and stable, They had just watched all the Indians up and move west. But on a rumor that soldiers were going to kick them out, he loses his temper and loads them up to leave the next day? Without the backstory of debt (which original readers wouldn't have), it just shows him to be this hot-headed man who refuses to stick anything out and is fine with wasting all that time and money and putting his family at risk again for his stupid pride. Reading these as an adult is really different - I just can't stand Pa at all now.

So, they're fording the river. Poor Jack left to drown ... er swim. Mary and Laura are told to lay down, and Mary's cowering under the quilt as Laura stands up and sneaks a peek. Pa jumps off to help the horses, Ma takes the reins .. Where is Baby Carrie, who until now has been depicted as held by Ma on the wagon seat?

Well, doesn't that just mean that she can't put Daphne on the stand and have Daphne perjure herself, NOT that the defense can't make an argument to raise a reasonable doubt? And we don't *know* that the lawyer knows what happened, we don't know that Daphne confessed to her. They were just standing in the police station chatting under the assumption that she *was* guilty and there was absolutely no way to get her off. But I still maintain that unless they skipped over a lot of other evidence, having her fingerprints PROVES nothing, and I'm not sure how they obtained an arrest warrant on that alone (it's the only evidence we as the audience were given as a reason). Bring her in for questioning? Sure thing. Outright arrest her and have an open and shut case? No. I am curious to see where they go with this story though. Both girls were stupid to be there without a lawyer, and if Bay has any sense at all, she'll have called one before starting in on that confession business.

What I'm wondering is ... if it was that easy to poke a hole in the "Daphne did it" story, why couldn't the lawyer come up with other holes? Why was it such a slam-dunk case? It wasn't any job site - it was Daphne's MOM's site. Where her MOM obviously was setting things up. Maybe Daphne went over to see it before the groundbreaking, maybe she touched things leaving her fingerprints. Proving that she was THERE does not prove that she vandalized it, at all. How did they even arrest her on that evidence? Loved Travis's mom showing up though! Better late than never.

Royal was 13 at the start of the book, so 14-15 before he went to Academy - maybe he had just decided by then (and made his choices known to his parents) that he didn't want to be a farmer, so they pursued more education for him. Almanzo is what, 10? 11? when he tells them he wants to be a farmer. Maybe his parents were just tailoring their approach to the future each child was suited for? They made Almanzo go to school until he had enough education to be a good farmer, and made sure he was involved in learning how to do everything on the farm.

Amazon has it listed for release Sept 1. Sadly though I 'm not going to spend $35 on it and will have to wait for it to go to kindle, the library, or turn up used.

It seems like they had some sort of pie or turnover with every meal. Which really when you think about it shows what an abundance they had - the sugar, the spices, the flour to make the crust. They had it in such large quantities that they could turn those apples and pumpkins into desserts every single day. That's what's striking about this book - they just had so *much*. They fed a family of 6, plus paid their workers in food, had 3 barns worth of livestock and still had some leftover food come spring. And money to send their children to the academy. And have the cobbler make their shoes. And on and on and on. The Ingalls had it pretty good in the Big Woods (compared to later), but nothing like that. Not even close!

There also seemed to only be a winter term from January until ... March maybe? The rest of the year he was helping out on the farm. And he skipped a lot of school to help out on the farm. But the other 3 kids went to the Academy, so who knows. But oh the food. So much food!

In reading it, I wondered is "40 below zero" just an expression? Did they have a different temperature scale? I remember from later books too they would say extreme temperatures but still be outside.

I don't think it's "Bay's a victim of the dress-code policy" debacle, so much as "Bay's a victim of the writers constantly dumping on her". After so much upheaval and generally crappiness, it would have been nice to have a drama-free magical senior prom. Yes, she's a great friend and stood up for her friends and that's great. Just c'mon writers, cut the girl a break. Though I guess that wouldn't have made for good TV. And where was the student recording the whole thing on their cellphone, as evidence that this guy was clearly stepping beyond the bounds of enforcing the dress code and calling them freaks, and "don't even get me started on you", etc. That's honestly where I expected it to go, that they were going to point out how so very fired he could be for talking like that ... or he could let them into the prom. It's kind of better that they didn't go into the prom, but I still wonder how none of them recorded it to get him fired.

In addition to all the food and relative prosperity - WHY would they leave when they have all this built-in help/community from their family? Oh, butchering time? An uncle comes to help. Harvesting. Sugaring time? Let's go help. We need to kill a calf to make cheese - oh, uncle will do it so we don't have to kill ours and we'll all get a piece of what we need. I bet that help extended to raising buildings, chidlbirth, etc. That helps goes a long way towards being prosperous, both because you can get more done faster, and it's a safety net if you're going through a rough time. I realize that many of their relatives left later too but the books present it as they left first. It's just foolish. The sugaring off dance always made me want that candy. It sounds so fun and magical for a child - go get a dish of snow, grandma pours syrup on it, and you get candy! As much as you can eat!

I wish Melody (isn't she the guidance counselor??) had taken the time to explain to him why it was stupid to drop out so close to graduation - that having your high school diploma may actually matter down the line and he's so close - and then, in her role as guidance counselor, see if there's a way to facilitate Travis taking finals and graduating while still taking his new job if that's what he wants to do. Even if Travis wants to go to college, even if there's this new program that he could attend, full-time college isn't a reality for a lot of people. He has no parental support - who's going to pay for him to get his degree? Should Travis just be obligated to take out loans to cover it, because Melody thinks it's a good idea? Maybe they could hit on a happy medium, where Travis works full time, earning enough money to support himself (and the pride, not to mention medical insurance, that come with it) and also take a couple of classes a semester to work towards a degree. But the "you will go to college" thing just seems disrespectful to me after Travis JUST said that he doesn't want to rely on someone else to support him. I also wanted Regina to point out to Daphne that while, yeah, she fought with Angelo and that may have inadvertently contributed to his death, right now Daphne is the one picking fights, so pot meet kettle. People get mad, people get hurt, they fight, it happens. I was glad to Regina, Bay, and Kathryn all acknowledging that Daphne's behavior sucks though - hopefully soon we can move to the end of the "Daphne is angry and self destructive" phase.

Of course we find out later that Frank would come to exist anyways, but I wonder if *she* wondered about the repercussions if Frank didn't exist - i.e. does that start some crazy time-hopping circle where she was never in Scotland to go through the stones to meet Jamie (to meet Randall, to have Jamie marry and defend her, to save Jamie from Randall, to make Jamie kill Randall ... and if he doesn't kill Randall then Frank does exist and she does go to the stones and meet Jamie ....). Could the same thing happen if they had actually changed major events (her not existing or going to the stones)? Sure. But contemplating it in the tiny circle of events makes it seem immediately very chancy to do. Plus, of course, her feelings for Frank as a person. It just always felt like there was more to it than making sure Frank existed as a person, more immediacy that she didn't consider as much in the changing of larger events.

That's what I was thinking the entire time they were doing it - all those fingerprints! And she's on parole. I can't help but hope she does get caught because she clearly hasn't learned anything, though it would undoubtedly cause even more work drama for Regina. I hope there's no way Bay can get entangled in it though, seeing as how Daphne stole the paint from her. (Nice to see how easily they all refer to each other as family now.) We all know that for the show to continue, all the kids are going to end up at some local college; at least they're putting the effort in to establish how this deaf program will be established and run instead of "look, magical fictional college just appeared and has an amazing program for the deaf!". I appreciate the effort.

Agreed - the setting up of it with her not dressed and her house a mess and just seeming really frazzled. It just seemed like she knew she needed support to stay sober. I actually really like the continuity of it - once Regina got sober again it wasn't mentioned, so I'm glad in a time of stress they show her still actively seeking help to remain sober. At the same time, it's one of the reasons Daphne's behavior really bothers me. She *knows* her mom is an alcoholic, she knows how bad it could get, in the past she'd been shown as watching out for Regina in that regard, but this time she's just piling the stress and guilt directly on Regina with absolutely no regard for it. I get that she's hurt and sad, but how long can she really go on placing all the blame on Regina before someone smacks some sense into her? I would rather see her deal with this without the open hostility. If she's such a gifted pre-med teenager, I don't buy that she took "stress, anger, high blood pressure ..." and immediately deduced that it was all and only Regina's fault (given that she knew about the restaurant going bust, the recent custody battles, the switch as a whole, etc - NOT just one fight). Or maybe it is all in character and I just don't like Daphne. I hope, if we have to deal with all of Daphne's acting out, they can also continue with the story of Bay getting to know her bio family on Angelo's side. Sure his cousin was awful, but it would be nice to see her form a connection with her grandmother and with Abby.

I pretty well hate what they're doing with Daphne. It doesn't feel real to me that she would be so unhinged by Angelo's death to turn to cocaine, or even that she'd turn so heavily against Regina. She spent like 10 seconds reconnecting with him, and instead of trying to be there to support her mother (and make sure she doesn't turn back to substance abuse ...) she lays all the blame firmly on Regina. Guess little Miss Pre-med is missing the idea that while Regina may have argued with him that night, there could have been a thousand other instances that could have triggered this. If it had ruptured during all the stress of, say, that brief stint of trying to raise Abby, would she have blamed the baby? I do like that they brought Leo and Abby back though, and didn't just drop them. She is Bay's sister, so they *are* family. I don't want them moving in, but taking Abby for a weekend here or there (maybe keeping Angelo's part of the custody arrangement?) would be really nice continuity and show Kathryn and John's commitment to doing what's right for Bay in re her bio family.